


The Deep Black Sky

by startrekto221B



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, M/M, Outer Space, Science fiction (sort of), Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 00:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4079701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekto221B/pseuds/startrekto221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2040 and NASA is sending up a crew of 5 on the first ever manned mission to Mars. Geologist Dr. John Watson wants only to journey out into the wide expanse, land safely on the red planet and use his years of expertise to determine whether there was ever life there and whether there can ever be, and then return home. He does not want his own personal odyssey. He does not want to orbit the loneliest of places with what appears to be the unfrendliest of men. He does not want to place his fate in the hands of Sherlock Holmes and the doubtful mercy of the deep black sky. But events seldom go the way we want them. And strange things happen in space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Stars Will Be Watching

_“Not just beautiful, though--the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me.”_

_\--Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore_

I saw the stars above Britain one final time with my daughter Annie in early May. We lay on the soft grass behind her grandmother’s house and doubtless if Mary were alive she would have yelled from the kitchen to at least lay on a blanket so that we wouldn’t get nits in our hair or something. The yellow light from the kitchen made it so I could just see the outline of Annie’s face and the shine of her eyes but little else. Fireflies sparkled in the bushes near the tall wooden fence that separated this property from the next. Annie looked towards me with interest, and I wondered if she was memorizing my face for when I would be away. I pointed towards the stars and told her that that’s where I would be going.

“You said you were going to America,” she said, annoyed, “Make up your mind.”

“I’ll go there first, then we’ll launch off the Earth from Cape Canaveral and before you know it your old Dad will be up in space,” I explained.

“Once, a long time ago, you said she was up there,” Annie pointed out, “That’s not true is it? That was just something you made up because I was too little.”

Damn, she had the memory of an elephant and the stubbornness of an ox. I couldn’t possibly begin to explain to an eight year old the difference between heaven and outer space. Especially not with my flight leaving in an hour. It wouldn’t be fair to her old gran either, having to deal with a religious crisis mere minutes after I handed over my daughter to her for a visit of unprecedented length--19 months. The old woman had said it would be no trouble. She had raised four girls in her time. Mary the youngest. It would be good, she had said, to hear the pitter patter of little feet in her house and to see a lovely little girl play the old piano again. But she would be in for a real surprise. I didn’t tell her then that Annie would more likely stomp around her house like a horse and would prefer digging in the garden for worms and special rocks to delicately caressing the keys of the old Morstan baby grand. In that way she was like me.

“Do you remember the constellations I taught you?” I deftly changed the subject.

“The big and little dipper, Orion’s belt, there’s the North star there, Aquarius there, and Aries,” she recited cleanly, allowing me just this once to get away with not answering one of her questions.

“That’s the name of my shuttle you know,” I said.

“You’ve told me, Aries 1, on route to Mars,” she sighed, “Why can’t you take me with you?”

“I would if it were allowed, you know I would,”

“The kids at school say there’s a chance you might not come back,”

“That’s nonsense,”

“The man that comes to teach us about the gospels, Reverend Cran, he says space is a godless place, empty of all the beauty of creation,”

“That’s not true,” I said, planning to have a word with this Reverend Cran when I got back about filling my daughter’s head with nonsense, “Space is one of the most beautiful things there is. When I was a kid I could spend hours just looking up at it. Wondering if there were any other worlds out there just like ours.”

“You’ll be lonely up there, in all that empty blackness,” she said simply.

“I’ll have the stars,” I told her, “And there are millions of them.”

“They’ll watch over you,” she said decidedly, “And so will I from Earth.”

After that we were quiet. It was one of the nice things about Annie, that she didn’t always need to talk. She put her little hand in mine, it was another nice thing about her, that she always knew what to do even when I, the adult, didn’t. In that way she was like her mother. 


	2. The First Quadrant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John meets the crewmates of Project Aries 1.

_“I heard the universe as an oratorio sung by a master choir of stars, accompanied by the orchestra of the planets and the percussion of satellites and moons.”_

_\--R.J. Anderson, Ultraviolet_

I can hear so much more noise when it’s relatively silent. On the plane people are for the most part at rest, leaning their heads back and drooling on their head rests or watching some drama films and 3 star romantic comedies on the screen in front. They’re fairly quiet. And it’s here more than anyplace else that I notice the noise, my own breathing, the intermittent cries of the baby in 42C, the sound that I can only describe as the low whir that lets you know you’re on an airplane. I wonder if it’ll be like this on the shuttle. Or maybe there’ll be no noise at all, just me and my thoughts when my four shipmates are keeping mum. For once the cacophony of the universe might be quiet. I honestly don’t know which I prefer.

The Newark airport is plenty loud in the usual way. I’ve always found Americans to be a loud, boisterous sort of people. Though it’s not a bad thing necessarily. I have a connecting flight to Houston, where we’re going to train for a few weeks before we all head down to Florida for the launch. In the time I have to kill I page through a few magazines, finding nothing new but the increasing reports of environmental damage and the cries from both the left and right wing that something has to be done. It reminds me yet again how crucial my mission is, it will ultimately be my decision, I realize, whether we end up colonizing Mars.

In Houston a man finds me immediately and I ask him whether he works at The 1st Quadrant, one of four major space centers across the United States currently operated by the space agency, a highly secure and secret facility where I am to spend the next two weeks. He shakes his head. He is only a driver.

It takes about two hours to get there, and just as I am about to doze off we pull up next to an ominous looking black gate. The man, whose name I realize I have forgotten to ask, asks me to get out of the car and present identification to the screen that has been projected in front of the gate. I smile, of course everything here would be virtual.

Four layers of identification are necessary before I am cleared and allowed inside. The 1st Quadrant is pure black on the outside, I realize the glass is probably tinted one way, people inside can see out but I can’t make out anything happening within. There’s cameras that twitch and turn as I walk towards the revolving door that leads into the massive complex. There is no guard, armament or identification gate here. I can simply walk inside.

Once inside I am shocked by the flare of several screens on every wall. I can’t draw any meaning from the words flashing in clean blue lettering every five or so seconds. The closest approximation of the space would be the lobby of a fancy hotel but no hotel I’ve ever stayed at has this many people walking around talking rapidly into their bluetooths. The predominant colors used everywhere are a deep blue, black, and a cool grey. All the hard surfaces are ridiculously polished steel except the conference tables I can see in the offices in the back, those are black granite with flecks of other, brighter colors--I realize it is an artistic rendition of space.

“You must be Dr. Watson,” a man comes forward to shake my hand from among the grey suited ones so busy in their work.

“John is fine,” I say, I’ve always let people drop the Dr. because I’m not a medical man.

“Mycroft Holmes,” he says coolly, and I know the man in front of me is the one who built this facility from the ground up, this and the three others scattered across the United States, the Quadrants, the beginning of the new Space Age.

He takes me into his office, rapidly typing in a pin code that clears a green flashing barrier that he informs me is quite high voltage. I don’t seem too bothered, and he seems a touch disappointed that that particular detail failed to impress. We go over my training plan here, and he thanks me for being so agreeable. Apparently there aren’t many master geologists specializing in non-Earth terrain who are willing to strap themselves to a government jet and pray for the best. I’m not surprised. For a geologist I suppose I’m quite a thrill seeker. Always have been. He sees that in me I think, and it fascinates him, because otherwise I’m such a typical man. I’ve read that you need at least 2 ph.Ds and an IQ above 130 to even walk through the door at one of these places. I’ve just always had a weird obsession with rocks and space.

Mycroft runs down the names of the other members of my team. On the science side there’s me, the geologist, which is technically an inaccurate terms since the prefix geo means Earth, and we’re going to Mars. With me is Molly Hooper, a doctor of astrophysics and atmospheric chemistry. Mission Commander Gregory Lestrade has degrees in both engineering and the sciences (less specialized), so I suspect he’s being brought along to talk science to the science geeks and engineering to the engineers. Philip Anderson is the assistant engineer, having been awarded his second doctorate in aeronautics just this past fall he’s spent all his life in academia except this spring when he worked under our celebrated chief engineer. Mycroft pauses here before going on to the last member of the team. Sherlock Holmes has several specialized qualifications in aeronautical engineering, but I am more awed when Mycroft casually mentions that it was he who designed and had built the entire shuttle. In the months leading up to this mission I’ve been reading about past space missions and I know it takes an enormous team to carry out such a project. This has to be some sort of joke.

“How could he possibly…?” I look to Mycroft and raise an eyebrow.

“He is my brother,” Mycroft says as if this is some sort of explanation, to him I suppose it is.

The quadrant is like some sort of futuristic, utopian world. Every person has a communication wire, an electronic schedule, and there are uniforms. I never went to a boarding school, but it was probably something like this. I wonder if it’s only us who have to do this, the five people chosen to go up into space.

“I read your book, filled with such excellent notions, when you have time there are some interesting points I’d like to bring up with you,” I meet Phillip Anderson first, and he immediately strikes me as the kind of person who's worked hard to please professors all his life, professors who he feels are not as intelligent as he is.

Gregory Lestrade I see later in the dining commons, as pristine and polished as the rest of the place, and he asks me to call him Greg. We talk for a bit and I hear he’s also leaving a daughter behind. This is his second mission, so he gives me a little advice on how to handle leaving Earth. I don’t mind. He asks me if my wife is alright with all this and reacts the way people usually do when I tell them that she’s passed on. He says he’s divorced but seeing someone on the base right here in the 1st quadrant, he says a long space journey is difficult on everyone.

I explore the complex a bit by myself with my fancy new pin codes running through my head, quite calmly hoping not to get electrocuted in every doorway I pass through. I walk past the giant observatory with the famous Aumann telescope. There’s a whole array of labs on the underground levels, and I remember when I was told about this mission I first expected to be sent down there, one of the many scientists being called to analyze the samples from the unmanned missions. I had no idea they would be sending me into space.

On the third floor there are offices, the fourth is computer command, the fifth houses a majority of the bunks as well as the dining commons and recreational/exercise facility. The entire second floor is designated for flight prototypes. When I first stumble in it appears like a robotic facility, all sorts of things that look to me almost like toys lying all around the place. Giant arms and auto revolving wheels. What looks like a miniature rocket engine. One of the outer rooms is labelled ‘Phillip Anderson, Assistant Engineer, Aries 1’ in what I suspect is his large circular handwriting. Weird that where everything is automated they would handwrite a label on a door. On another office label an almost angry black scrawl reads ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

Since I want to meet him, the only person on the team I haven’t seen yet, I wait outside for a bit. Some of his papers are lying on the desk outside and I pick some up to peruse. Every inch of space is covered in what I think are engine designs. He’s crossed about two thirds of it out. Words like ‘stupid’, ‘never going to work’ and ‘idiot’ are written in the same handwriting that’s on the door. On a whiteboard in the back of the room are scrawled three cardinal rules.

 

  1. If it can be imagined it can be engineered.

  2. An inefficient solution is an idiotic solution.

  3. This is not a school, I am not your teacher and I don’t accept incompetence.




 

“Newark or JFK?” a voice asks from behind me as a gloved hand swipes the papers from me.

“Newark, how did you…?” I guess that this man must be Sherlock Holmes and wonder why he’s dressed like that.

The man lifts the visor up of his welding mask revealing blue green eyes that send a chill down my spine.

“Welding the prototype,” he says, guessing my question, “Your watch is still adjusted to that time zone, you look lost so no doubt you’re new, which is also made obvious by the fact that you’re still standing here in a place I make very clear is off limits to any but the engineering staff, though I’m sometimes tempted to deny them that privilege as well, your clothes are a bit ruffled so you haven’t had time to change since you came from London guessing from your accent, it’s a long flight and you didn’t sleep, bags under your eyes, you could sleep now, obvious jetlag, my brother paid for the trip and rates are cheapest this time of year at those two New England airports, he’s a cheapskate, even when building this lab, mindlessly utilitarian, though you probably don’t mind, science facilities are top notch and what do you need for geology but a pickaxe, a flashlight and magnifying glass?”

“Geology...have we met?” I ask and he smirks.

“No, you would have remembered me, most people do, can’t imagine why, though I may have forgotten you,” he says smoothly.

Well that’s rude.

“Newark,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else, “And that was...well sort of amazing.”

“That’s not what people usually say,” he seems surprised, “Sherlock Holmes,” he extends his hand and I shake the flameproof material of his glove.

“I’m--” I start to say as he cuts me off.

“Shouldn’t we talk a bit? We are going to be sharing a shuttle for months,” I protest.

“I know exactly who you are, a doctor of geology, single parent, divorced, obsessed with space ever since he was a kid, this place is like a candy store to you, you’ve never been in space before and you’re equally thrilled and scared, I think that’s enough to be getting on with, now if you would excuse me I have a shuttle to build, unless you fancy being burned to a crisp as we exit the Earth’s atmosphere,” Sherlock looks at my expression and smiles manically, “Didn’t think so. Evening.” He looks at me and winks before dashing out of another door.

At dinner I think of Annie. Whether she’s adjusting well in her grandmother’s neighborhood. Wondering whether she’s found friends. I explained to her when I first decided to take the mission why I was willing to leave her for so long. It’s not easy for me either, I would say. But for her children and their children and their children we need to find another world. They too need a place from which to hear the music of the universe.

I look around the place and find Molly, Lestrade and Phillip all sitting with their respective groups, not yet the team I know we’ll have to be soon. I don’t particularly want conversation right now, preferring to take things in, but I find myself thinking of the odd man in the welding suit that seemed to know just about everything. I look around the hall several times. There is no sign of Sherlock Holmes.

 

 


	3. The Metal Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John undergoes intensive training in the two weeks prior to liftoff.

_“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”_

_\--Andre Gide_

I was told over two months ago to start preparing myself physically for this trip. I was given a specific diet by British representatives of the Quadrant who came by the old flat in London, an exercise plan that they told me would do as much as was possible to safely bring me to prime condition for a space voyage. Once at the base, they said, Mycroft Holmes would provide only two weeks for a debriefing and acclimatization phase, having moved the liftoff date earlier so that his 10 year plan (the Aries 2, 3, and 4 were already in conception) could proceed exactly as intended. I was a touch annoyed, but I said I didn’t mind, after all, it’s hard to argue with a man who’s helping you achieve your life’s dream.

The first morning the team is brought together at the Quadrant we're each given USB sticks and told that these contained the entirety of the mission parameters, relevant classified information and our duties aboard the shuttle. Only four of us astronauts are present, plus the two project managers who would head computer command: Sally and Jim. I wonder whether Sherlock will bother showing up at all, when he comes up from behind me yet again and sits down on the polished steel stool to my immediate left.

He is wearing the long sleeved version of the dark blue Quadrant uniform, a badge on the right side of his chest, right where the shirt has a pocket that reads ‘Engineering’ in the same spot where mine reads ‘Science’ and Sally’s reads ‘Computer Command’. He's a lot leaner than he had appeared the day before in his robot lab. But I guess that's obvious, everyone looks a bit bulky in a welding suit. He glances at me again with those startling blue eyes and smirks, probably remembering the conversation of the day before.

I almost don't notice it until he reaches his right hand up to brush an errant brown curl back from his forehead. But after he does it is all I can notice. While the left hand that rests on his left knee is long fingered and pale, his right hand is made of metal. I can't decide what it is, but it appears to be made of the smoothest silver, with exactly the appearance of a real human hand. Because his sleeve is so long its unclear to me when his real arm ends and the hand begins, it is then that I realize how long I've been staring at it.

“Something interesting to you, _Doctor_ Watson?” he asks, covering the silver hand with his normal one.

I don't want to toy with him, so I just tell him the truth, “I don’t mean anything by it, I’ve never seen a hand like that before,”

“It’s going to rain in about an hour,” Sherlock says, “And Molly’s wondering how she’s going to break it to her boyfriend that they have to break up before she goes up into space, though it probably doesn’t matter, she suspects correctly that he’s been cheating for weeks now,”

Molly pointedly looks away and sniffs.

Now I’m annoyed, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I thought we were taking turns pointing out the obvious,” he smirks again.

We go over the details of the mission for another hour or so before they take us outdoors and into another building adjacent to the main quadrant where they keep the simulators. Lestrade, the only one of us to have actually been in space, says this part is more useful than any of the theory. I ask him whether I offended Sherlock by talking about his silver hand, but he says he’s always like that. Interesting.

I ask Phillip Anderson after the zero gravity simulator what he knows about Sherlock Holmes.

“I’m not a fan if that’s what you’re asking, I’ve spent the better part of the last few months being chastised beyond a reasonable limit for not understanding robotics, _me_ not understanding robotics? I almost wanted to quit.” Anderson sighs.

“Have you ever asked about the--” I decide that since Anderson clearly hates Sherlock, it’s pretty safe to bring this up.

“The hand, of course, it’s so attuned to his body that it’s quite a feat of robotic science, I had to ask, he wouldn’t tell me the truth of what happened to the real one of course, but he wouldn’t even show me the schematics for this one, only mentioned that he designed it himself,” Anderson prattles on.

“I’ve asked him about it too,” Molly pipes up, “My that gravity’s going to take a bit of getting used to. What was I saying? Oh yes, he told me it was bitten off by a shark.”

“He changes the story every time you ask him,” Lestrade laughs, “It’s almost funny.”

“How long have you known him?” I ask Lestrade with interest.

“Two years, but don’t ask me anything, I hardly know him better than you do,” he explains.

Sherlock doesn’t join us for lunch or for dinner, but when I go back to my bunk I find that the one above me in the rather small room, more like a cell really, has him in it. He’s reading some engine schematics on a tablet PC, swiping to the side every few seconds with that shiny hand.

“Excuse me, what are you doing here?” I look up at him.

“They want us to live in relative proximity in these last two weeks, to approximate life on the shuttle, get used to each other, I play the violin when I’m thinking, sometimes I don’t speak for days on end, would that bother you?” he looks back down at me.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I ask.

“Potential shuttlemates should know the worst about each other,” he explains, though I highly doubt this is the worst of him.

“I looked you up on the database last night,” I say.

“Find anything interesting?” he puts down the tablet.

“Your website, The Intelligence of the Future,” I answer.

“What did you think?” he peers at me deeply and I wonder whether he has any other mechanical implants, maybe even ones that let him read minds.

I shrug and he seems disappointed, “Interesting stuff. You said you could develop a machine that could replace the functional components of an entire human being. In fact you said you could develop a machine that could perform any task that came to your mind.”

“The computer is a silicon based organism, the human is a carbon based one, once you comprehend that fact you can design anything,” he turns back to his briefing and I follow suit, retrieving my tablet from under the bed and swiping it on.

Over the next thirteen days I’m more busy than I’ve ever been. There are tests to pass, waivers to sign, simulations to run and more information to memorize than I’ve ever had to deal with before. Procedures, regulations, communication codes, pin codes, emergency options. I take a course in basic shuttle piloting, in case it happens that I’m the only one left in the shuttle who is physically capable of it’s manual operation, though Sherlock assures me this will never happen, his autopilot system is built to last. The first time we do piloting lessons I wonder whether I will find it difficult, the only thing I’ve ever driven is a car, and that too an old 2026 Toyota Prius, not the fancy model brands Annie likes. But besides Sherlock, who zooms through the virtual course and landing procedures, having designed this particular version of the piloting controls himself, I am the best pilot. In fact, without the additional speed they say he gets through using that metal hand, which moves faster than human fingers are even capable, I might even have a better handle than he does.

Sherlock never joins us for meals, preferring instead to shove something down his throat before proceeding again to the robotics lab, dragging Anderson by his shirtsleeve with such endearments as ‘Idiot come’, ‘I need you to be at least moderately competent today’ and ‘Give me a few more days and I’ll build a 3rd rate robot to replace you’. Anderson later remarks to me that he wishes he had stayed in academia.

I rarely ever see him in the room either. He prefers to work nights at the lab as well, and when I ask him about it he makes the comment he made earlier about burning to a crisp as we leave the atmosphere. I don’t ask again. When he’s sleeping he wears a dressing gown, long sleeved as well. But unlike his uniform at all other times, collared and buttoned up to the top button, the shirt he wears underneath shows more of his collarbone and his neck. I don’t see it until I come up on him fallen asleep on the sofa adjacent to our bunks, tablet resting on his chest, but a patch of silver shines on his upper chest, the shirt nearly covers it and it’s only apparent now because everything else is so dark and it’s shining like anything. I wonder if his entire body is like that, patches of silver on swathes of pale skin. I don’t wake him up either, I don’t think he’d like that I’d seen it.

Despite the fact that I have no time whatsoever a few junior scientists from the labs downstairs call me down to give my opinions on the previous martian samples, as well as some from the lunar colony, to which we haven’t sent a manned shuttle in nearly five years. The samples show great promise, and I begin to feel again that this whole mission is worthwhile.

A week in we’re allowed to make our second to last family call. I talk to Annie for what feels like only a few seconds. Hearing her bright voice on the other end I wonder if I’ve made the right decision. But she tells me I have, and I’ve never been more proud of her for understanding. Sherlock is the only one of us who makes no family call, and I ask him if his family isn’t expecting one.

“I see too much of my family as it is,” he says sharply, “My brother’s office is an elevator ride away.”

Nine days in Sherlock interrupts my afternoon mission briefing.

“You’re a geologist,” he says brightly, “Any good?”

“Very good,” I look to Sally and she gestures as if to say ‘go ahead, I had nothing to say anyway’.

“Come with me,” he says and I dart off after him to the robotics lab.

Once in he questions me for a good two hours on the wheel designs he’s made for the robots that will descend with us onto Mars. He doesn’t know the first thing about Martian dirt composition. And I spend the better part of the time arguing with him. Yet as I’m speaking he’s drawing up new design after new design with his metal hand, moving so fast I almost can’t see it at times. The final one he makes is flawless, and he labels it the Watson 1.

“Work is so much more productive when people are willing to disagree with me,” he points out, “Your next briefings probably started, but if you don’t want to go, I could show you the shuttle prototype.”

I follow him to the grounds to one of the simulation rooms where a giant sphere is floating in zero gravity. He smiles at it and looks at me, “Have you ever seen anything this beautiful?”

Sherlock’s shuttle looks like no other I’ve ever seen before. Nothing like most kinds of starship I’ve seen even in movies, the closest approximation is probably the Death Star from Star Wars. The outside isn’t at all smooth. There’s so many attached arms and levers and latches on it. Panelling that I strongly suspect harnesses solar energy. Sherlock grabs a remote control and spins it and turns it every which way. For such a gigantic thing, it’s absurdly graceful.

“That’s brilliant,” I say.

“I’ve used a similar metal alloy as the one that’s in my hand, it’s incredibly malleable,” he explains, and as he hands me the remote my skin brushes against the cold metal of his hand, I think this is a peace offering. He’s realized I think, that on a long voyage like this, he needs someone who isn’t completely annoyed by him.

I play with the ship for a bit before we decide to go back inside, breaking too much of the schedule on the Quadrant so close to the mission launch is risky. And I haven’t come all this way for nothing. On the way back in Sherlock goes back to the robotics lab and I bump into Lestrade.

“Alright?” he asks.

“You seen the prototype?” I reply.

“Not yet no, I know what it’s supposed to look like and everything, but the unveiling is tomorrow,” he says.

Whoever Lestrade is seeing on the Quadrant doesn’t seem to take up a lot of his time. He’s in near constant meetings with Mycroft about the mission, and he’s at every briefing with us, even the ones he doesn’t really have to be in, and goes through the simulations religiously, despite his experience. I ask him if she’s in computer command, there are a lot of women in computer command I’ve noticed.

“No a CC girl would never go for me,” he laughs. I wonder who his mystery woman is.

Two nights before liftoff just as I’m about to go to sleep, Sherlock says my name.

“This never happens,” he says when I get up and he jumps down from the top bunk, “God damn it.”

“What happened?” I ask.

He hesitates a bit, then explains, “My hand froze, it sometimes does when I overuse it and I was coding all last night, should have gotten the computer command kids to do it for me, I don’t know why I always insist on doing everything myself, but if those idiots messed it up…”

“What do you need me for?” I wonder out loud.

“There’s some wiring on my arm, if you re-do a portion of it the entire system will re-start, I tried but I can’t do it with just my left hand,” he confesses, and though he does not look at me with those piercing eyes I can tell from his tone how it hurts him to ask for this, “Could you…”

“I’m not a doctor, or an engineer,” I point out.

“It doesn’t matter, your hands are steady, you’re a good pilot, and I explain what to do, none of the doctors or engineers would understand the system anyway,” he says quickly.

He asks me to pull up his sleeve and when I do I see exactly where his metal hand ends and his arm begins, at the junction there is a smooth coil of wires, some go in through his skin like veins and others are tightly bound to its surface like wound metal threads.

“Listen to exactly what I say,” he says and waits for me to nod, “Remove red and green, underneath are two silver, the thinner one is hooked into another green, pull it out slowly and pull apart the two blue coiled around it.”

I follow his instructions exactly, and five minutes later when I’ve put everything back in it’s original place he sighs and says he can feel his hand again.

“I’m sorry if any of that hurt,” I say.

“It didn’t physically pain me no,” Sherlock says stretching out his fingers, “I’ll--I’ll just be heading back to the lab then,”

I want to tell him not to go back so soon and risk having it freeze again, but fixing his metal hand doesn’t give me any claim on him, so I let him go.

The night before liftoff I walk around on the Quadrant grounds, looking up at the American stars one final time. I meant to ask Greg whether he had any before liftoff rituals he follows, but I haven’t bumped into him all day. I hear some noise in the simulation center, which is weird since they’ve all been finished, so I go to investigate and come upon Greg’s mystery woman at last.

Next to a door labelled ‘Warning: Zero Gravity Simulations Being Run’, Greg has none other than Mycroft Holmes in his arms. And I have interrupted what appears to be some serious snogging. Didn’t see that coming.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize--” I start to say, and Greg sheepishly looks away.

“You still want to go into space don’t you John?” Mycroft asks, still cool.

“Of course, yes,” I reply.

“Then get the hell out,”

I do as he says and walk back outside a little startled. I look up suddenly and wonder for just a second whether I am seeing the night sky from Earth for the very last time. But then I tell myself there’s no sense thinking that way, what will happen will happen, and my fate has always been my fate. It’s something close to what Mary said to me before she passed away, in the last months in the hospital when I was rushing her back and forth from specialist to specialist trying to find some sort of miracle cure. I wonder what Mary would have thought about my going into space, whether she would be impressed, worried or vehemently against it.

For my part I think she would have been enthusiastic, and possibly a little jealous that she could not go herself. There was always a wild child inside her struggling to get out, and she once told me she had liked me because I alone out of the men she had dated had seen that wildness and appreciated it. Everyone else thought she was just another rich girl, poised and perfect and prepped and groomed, with degrees in classical piano and formal dance. She told me she had fallen in love with me when I had taken her out to a disco. What a night that had been.

And what a night this was. The last night I would spend on solid ground. For a long time at least. Then, in that moment, I was not scared at all. After all, if Mary had never left her comforts she never would have found me. I wouldn’t have Annie. And if I didn’t have Annie, I wouldn’t have anything. In my dreams I saw an ocean in front of me, and in it floated all the possibilities my idle mind could think of, a planet full of rocks to sample, a chance to expand the farthest reaches of existence, and the image of a strange man with a metal hand and his ridiculous spherical starship.

**Author's Note:**

> I love to start new things, and the idea of space has always, always fascinated me and I've loved Johnlock ever since I saw the two of them on screen and sharing a page. So why not put the two together? I sincerely hope you enjoy it. As of now it's a work in progress. I'll add more tags as I need them.


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